Balance?
by teremala
Summary: Ah, the choices one must make when one is only almost all-powerful...the woman or the man; their child or the universe?


It's the last day of the seventh month. He's about fourteen inches long now, if the text books are right. And no reason they shouldn't be, of course.

I like to hold my hands just that far apart, and to try to feel the contours of his body inside my own. I can't really, of course, but I like to imagine him, my little boy - so very, very little now, but still so safe inside of me.

I know I'm being a silly, but I don't mind. There will be plenty of time for being rational and sensible later. For now, I'd love nothing more than to sit here and dream. I have myself and I have the baby and if that were all there was to the universe, I would be content.

Oh, but I remember when I first found out about him. I had wondered, of course, but_ knowing_ was so much more real. I had wanted to rush home and tell my husband, but I couldn't, you see, because I was _pregnant_. It scared me a bit, quite honestly, and that in turn surprised me. I drove home slowly, safely, because it wasn't just me, it was also this tiny spark of life that would become my _child_.

Just a few years ago, it seemed, I had been a child myself. I'd been happy growing up, but I want _him_ to be even happier. When I was a teenager, my mother and I had had a bit of a falling-out and I don't suppose we've ever recovered from that. I don't want that for my son. I want to be his mother his whole life. He'll probably hate me for it - I can just imagine his sour face when I hug him in front of his friends! - but I'll love him just the same. And he'll love me.

It's so odd now to think of the days after I'd learned of my pregnancy. I was so..._unsettled_, I guess. The doctor said not worry, and Michael said not to worry, but I did.

I remember that, when I finally got home from my slow drive across town, I had tried to walk calmly. I reached for the door handle. I couldn't wait to see him, to jump into his arms. But then I stopped. _Time _stopped and, in that millisecond, I thought a million things. _I'm having a heart attack. I'm hallucinating. I'm having a miscarriage. Someone's in the house. _

I was terrified. Everything was dark and the door was miles away. Nothing moved. It was a scene out of a horror movie. I feared for the baby, but couldn't relax, couldn't even breathe.

But then it was gone, as if nothing had happened. I remember shaking my head, bemused at my own reaction, uncertain if anything had happened at all. I reached out to toward the door again. This time, my fingers brushed obediently against the cool metal. I pushed the door open, still a little shaken, but all the while I was grinning my head off. I was ecstatic again and I knew all I'd be able to say would be, "We're having a baby, we're having a baby!"

"A--" I had started to call, then stopped myself. I remember that moment because of how desperately _confused_ I suddenly felt. It was like a horrible, twisted version of déjà vu. I had started to say something that felt familiar and comforting - but _what_? I shook my head. Now was not the time.

"Michael?" I had said loudly instead. Michael: of course.

"Loren?" came the answer. "What's wrong?"

I hugged him, then, and said, no, love, nothing's wrong - it's _right_. And all night, we laughed together like children and suggested terrible names and couldn't stop glancing at one another and exclaiming, "We're going to have a baby!"

But the whole time, I couldn't shake the terror of that moment when I had reached out for the door handle with an arm that had seemed to stretch to forever and fingers that had threatened to curl back on themselves. I couldn't rid myself of the feeling that, in that moment, I had had something wondrous stolen from me.

----

_First, do no harm_, one of the humans' philosophers once advised. He had a point, I suppose, but it raises the inevitable question: do no harm to _whom_?

To the woman who, despite my careful _twists_ of her memory - my calculated non-interference - still longs for her husband? To the man I took away from his wife to fight a war amongst stars her people do not even know? To their son, a mere child who must be made of both of them in spirit as well as in flesh if he is to survive...shall I do harm to_ him_?

You begin to see my choices. You begin to sense the impossible task of pointing to someone you care for quite dearly, in your own way, and saying, "There: that is the one who will suffer."

And perhaps you begin to imagine a way of distributing the pain. Perhaps you think on Earth, of humans and their societies. You know they have hospitals for their sick; you know there are families who will take an orphaned infant. And then you begin to sketch...

You imagine icy roads, a careless driver. A young woman walks down a sidewalk. Her hair billows in her face. Why is she outside? You do not bother with these details. It is enough for her to be there, the child in its buggy, wrapped carefully in fleecy maternal protection.

She slips, or perhaps it's the car that slips. It does not matter: now she is on the ground, flesh torn, head and mind damaged. The child rolls on, shrieking at the sudden noise, at his mother's screams.

That was action: your action, my action, _someone's_ action. Something has been caused to be, and something else not to be. The warrior has been returned to his people and yet will someday return to his son. She will not know either of them and, in not knowing, will allow them to save her and all of her people.

Someday, she may even understand.

These are the compromises one makes. These are the compromises _I _make with the evil that is my unwanted twin. We play our game and we make up our rules, dictating the little lives on the spherical boards around us.

They think that I enjoy being the one who knows all. They are wrong. I do not enjoy knowing but, since I do, I am obliged to continue playing evermore.


End file.
